Island at the Top of the World

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a Secret War against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold is a scenario that takes Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 back to North America, but not the Mid-West USA of Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter! or the ice cold of British Columbia, Canada of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Snowstorm. Instead, it takes the Agents out into the Bering Sea in winter, more than a year before the USA joined the war effort and two years before the establishment of Majestic. It is March 1940 and from intercepted radio transmissions, Section M has learned that Nachtwölfe has dispatched a secret expedition ferried board a disguised Russian trawler, the Yalina, into US territorial waters where it has anchored off an uncharted island known as Threshold in the US territorial waters of the Bering Strait. In response, British government has informed its US counterpart and very quickly, the two governments have agreed to launch a joint Anglo-US mission to investigate and interdict the Nazi expedition. This is before the US government establishes Majestic as its counterpart to Section M, so it recruits the soldiers and experts that Professor Richard Deadman, one of the key figures in the future operations of Majestic, perhaps supported by Section M operatives who have already had experience with Nachtwölfe, the Mythos, and the Secret War.

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold is not a complex scenario. It is a simple matter of climbing onto the island from the other side to the site of the Nachtwölfe expedition, traveling across the top, observing the expedition’s activities, taking images using the assigned experimental cameras, and deciding what to do. There are a couple of wrinkles along the way, such as the weather and a potentially nosy polar bear, but as the Agents film the site, it is obvious that whatever it is that Nachtwölfe is doing on the island, is going to come to fruition soon! It is up to the players and their Agents to decide how they react to that, whether that is scouting the site and the trawler out, or going in all guns blazing. Whatever they decide to do, the mission is going to end in a big fight—though the Agents will have no idea how big—because after all, Achtung! Cthulhu is a roleplaying game of shooting and punching Nazis, let alone blasting the Mythos. Stealth is the better option, since it enables the Agents to learn more, perhaps gain some allies, find the documentation they have been assigned to look for, and perhaps even capture one or two of the enemy. Either way, the way, the scenario will climax with a fight that is both silly and actually makes sense in terms of the Secret War. Plus, there is scope for another faction from the Secret War to join in the fracas if the Game Master wants to complicate things and that also makes sense.

The scenario is solidly supported with stats for all of the Nachtwölfe (and other) enemies, including the quite odd expedition leader, Professor Tedrich Sauber, and the thing that he is after. There are maps for both the island and the expedition site, but no image of the thing that Professor Tedrich Sauber is searching for—and that is pity, because it does deserve to be illustrated. There are no pre-generated Agents either.

Where Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold has the potential to be a little more sophisticated is when the Game Master decides to set it. By default, the scenario takes in 1940, early in the war when the USA was not yet involved. In terms of the Secret War, the scenario takes place mostly after the events of Shadows of Atlantis, yet before A Quick Trip to France and subsequent missions. This limits when the scenario can be run as part of a campaign, as does the fact that it requires more experienced Agents. One way in which it can be used is as a side mission that serves as an introduction to the Secret Wars for American Agents, potentially recruits to Majestic in a few months’ time. 

Physically, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold is well presented. The area maps are serviceable, but otherwise, the scenario is not illustrated.

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold is a simple affair that can be run as a one-shot or a side mission—perhaps when not every player can attend a session—that will play out in a single session. Although it is set up as a classic Commando-raid-style mission, there are some some pleasing little nuances to it that make it a bit more interesting than the gun toting, spell blasting, Nazi-punching shootout that it is. Plus it has a really surprisingly big bad (one that you really really wish had been illustrated.)